Somewhere in North America

by

Doug Larson

A mother snowshoe hare perks her ears, wide-eyed and shaking, and eats her newborn babies methodically, one at a time, accompanied by the eerie haunting music of howling wolves.

It’s mid afternoon on an average workday. My wife calls, and it’s clear that she’s upset.
Our daughter wasn’t there when she arrived to pick her up from school. I tell her to call her closest friends and the YMCA, just in case she forgot that she wasn’t supposed to go there after school anymore.
I also tell her I’m leaving work right away, and will see her shortly.
My gut twists as I rush out the door.

My wife calls me on my cell phone ten minutes after I leave.
She is frantic.
Our daughter is not at the Y
and her friends haven’t seen her since class.

My daughter would never go home with a friend unless we had planned it together ahead of time.

I tell my wife to call the police.

My mind separates from my body as the milk of my composure curdles in my chest, excruciating my nerves. Every red light, every car and truck that obstructs my drive twists into my flesh slowly, like rusty steel screws.

I see black and white cars in front of my house as I turn up our usually quiet street. Neighbors are gathering in front of our house. My son is outside with friends and tells me casually that his sister is missing. Anna, a neighbor, tells me she is going to the YMCA to check for her personally. Dazed, I thank her and go inside. There are friends in the house, and the police are getting information from my wife. I throw my arms around her and I tell her it’s all going to be O.K.

The words were meant as hope, but instead, they stick to my tongue like a lie.

We call everyone we know in her classes from school. Anna returns from the Y. Our daughter is not there. She checked the after school rooms herself, and our daughter wasn’t checked in on the bus driver’s list.

I get in the car to look for my daughter. Her school is called, and the janitors are set to searching the bathrooms and classrooms. More friends search the school. Matt, another neighbor and friend, rides with me.

As my desperation mounts, I find myself walking through the park in a nightmarish dream, looking behind dumpsters, and peering into the puddles and debris strewn interior of the concrete lined flood control channel. I suddenly realize the horror of what I am doing. Matt tries to be reassuring, but he is scared as well and it shows.
I am silently praying - bargaining -

I will endure any torture. Flay the flesh from my body, eviscerate me in front of an angry mob - anything.

Anything.

Please.

Not my daughter.

Not my precious little girl.

It has been over two hours.

I search the YMCA myself to no avail, asking the counselors if they have seen her; if there is anywhere we haven’t looked. Students from her school are calling everyone they know. I drive back home to be with my wife because I don’t know what to do or where to look.

I am afraid to go home - afraid to stop moving.

Afraid to face my wife

Afraid of what her face will tell me.

Afraid that I will not be strong enough to support the burden of her fear

or my own

The police have escalated their search, and I hear helicopters in the neighborhood. Neighbors come and go, wanting to help. It’s going on 4 hours, and the police advise us to call the grandparents in case our daughter might have gone home with them. I tell them that it is impossible that my daughter would have gone home with her grandparents and that I don’t want to upset them for no reason. They insist that I need to contact them anyway. I can tell that they are losing hope. It has been too long. Too much time has passed. Reluctantly, I place the calls. I waver as my mother in law cries out over the phone; sob as I listen to my own mother’s distress.

I sit with my wife, and together we watch the ticking clock as the sun sets in the sky.

Nighttime falls like a funeral shroud.

It has now been over four hours.

Together, we wait for a call.

Imprinted into my flesh by the 6 o’clock news

A little girl is found lying by the side of the road. Her innocent little body has been violated, smeared with semen and blood and strangled, posed like a rag doll, while her distraught mother waits by a telephone for a call that will rip her heart from her body and leave her empty of life and wanting to die. Upon hearing the news her husband will fall to his knees and curl sobbing into a trembling ball on the floor. He will eventually stand, but his soul will remain scarred for the rest of his days.

The phone rings.

It is the YMCA. They want to know when someone is going to come to pick up our daughter and they put her on the phone and I -

I

flying and falling and floating

I

could collapse and die enraptured with joy and undying gratitude

sheer Joy undressed raw and precious and giddy smiling laughing

Love is washing the death of fear from my soul

I would climb through the wires to hold her but I drive instead
and the whole of the world bathes me in rapture and sunshine holy water

When I see my daughter I wrap myself tightly around her as if I were a starfish with a thousand arms. I want to absorb her into my flesh, squeeze her through my pores; keep her safe within my skin.

Under cover of a new moon a mother twitches her pink nose, and leaves her burrow with a full stomach. She looks now for a safer place to raise her young. As she bounds away, her departure is accompanied by the eerie haunting music of howling wolves.

[Somewhere, everywhere, all at once, a scarred soul laments and understands why sometimes, mothers and fathers are compelled to eat their precious children]

NEXT?
Why don't you look at On hearing a blackbird
by: Francis Duggan
from: Wonthaggi, Victoria, Australia

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